Salary Survey Extra: Linux experience and job hierarchy

Salary Survey Extra is a series of dispatches that give added insight into the findings of both our annual Salary Survey and our smaller Salary Survey PLUS polls. These posts contain previously unpublished Salary Survey data.

After last week’s detour into dystopia, we’re checking back in with the survey featured in our April magazine, which focused on Linux-certified professionals. We’re also going to repeat a previous experiment from our most recent Salary Survey PLUS to focus on the IT networking realm.

In early December of last year, we ran a simple comparison to examine the relationship between tenure (years of professional experience) and placement, or standing within one’s current organization. So here we go again: One of the questions we asked Linux Salary Survey respondents is how many years they have worked in Linux.

Once that’s been established, the next step is to correlate professional experience with placement. If you have so many years of Linux experience, then what is the likelihood that you will also occupy a certain status in your employer’s workplace hierarchy? In other words, is there a certain level of experience that makes it more likely you’ll land, say, as a manager, or senior specialist?

The biggest takeaway would seem to be that an impressive number of Linux-certified professionals end up topping out at the senior specialist level, or the top tier for workers who don’t take on any managerial responsibilities. Actually, that level seems to claim a notable number of Linux-certified individuals regardless of professional Linux experience.

Also, while managerial and executive positions for Linux-certified professionals are out there, they seem to be generally rare, and almost not available at all to anyone who’s been in the field for fewer than at least nine or 10 years. Take a look and see what you think. What’s the hierarchy like where you work?